Conventionally, A simulation apparatus for a communication system, for carrying out connection tests for protocol messages of the communication terminal by using a communication terminal currently under development as a product, for example, a mobile cellular phone as an object to be evaluated has been known.
Such a simulation apparatus for a communication system has a circuit for executing various communication tests with a communication terminal to be evaluated, by a communication system having predetermined communication protocols, for example, W-CDMA (Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access) built-in inside thereof.
The simulation apparatus for the communication system basically possess, as a pseudo base station, a series of procedures for measuring predetermined performances which correspond to a communication system as described above in a connection state of a communication terminal to be evaluated, and is configured so as to transmit a series of test signals including predetermined message information along the procedures to the communication terminal to be evaluated, and to receive a series of response signals corresponding to the series of test signals for measuring predetermined performances from the communication terminal to be evaluated.
In a case of carrying out tests for protocol messages in communication with a communication terminal serving as an object to be evaluated, the simulation apparatus for the communication system is configured so as to describe the contents of a series of processings including a series of procedures for measuring predetermined performances as described above in a scenario, and to operate in accordance with the scenario.
In this case, in a convention used for describing the protocol message of the communication system, the protocol message is configured from a gathering of hierarchical and enumerated nodes. Here, the nodes are information elements.
Types such as INTEGER, SEQUENCE, CHOICE, BIT STRING, or the like, as shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, are regulated for each node of those nodes configuring the protocol message.
One node is expressed by a binary digit string of a length of 0 or more (Encode), and the types of SEQUENCE, SEQUENCE OF, and CHOICE have child elements (have been made to be a hierarchy), and SEQUENCE has a row of a plurality of nodes (is enumerated).
Further, a SEQUENCE type is a type as which a row of child nodes is defined, and when a SEQUENCE type has a value, 1 bit means the “existence/nonexistence” of a node which can be omitted.
In the case of an example shown in FIG. 8A, 0 which is UL-CCCH-Message value shows that integrityChecklnfo which can be omitted has been omitted.
In FIG. 8A, the value of UL-CCCH-Message is 0, and integrityCheckInfo is omitted, and rrcConnectionRequest (a place surrounded with the elliptic frame) which is a value of message is 2 bits from the second bit.
In FIG. 8B, because the value of UL-CCCH-Message is 1, and integrityCheckInfo is not omitted, rrcConnectionRequest (a place surrounded with the elliptic frame) which is a value of message is 2 bits from the thirty-eighth bit.
Here, the thirty-eighth bit corresponds to a position of a bit following a total (1+32+4=37) of 1 bit of UL-CCCH-Message, 32 bits of messageAuthenticationCode, and 4 bits of rrc-MessageSequenceNumber.
This is made clear with reference to the case in which UL-CC-CH-MessageType is a CHOICE type, in FIG. 9 shown as an extract of the related part of the above-described explanation from the specification 3GPP TS25.331 disclosed in non-Patent Document 1. Non-Patent Document 1: 3GPP TS25.331 (RRC Protocol Specification 2002/03 pp1-29, pp550-554)
Here, it is necessary to focus on the fact that, rrcConnectionRequest (the place surrounded with the elliptic frame) which is a value of message becomes 2 bits from the second bit in FIG. 8A, and in contrast thereto, in FIG. 8B, the position of the node of the protocol message when the protocol message of the communication system is described in a scenario is shifted in accordance with a type (SEQUENCE, CHOICE) of the message such that rrcConnectionRequest (the place surrounded with the elliptic frame)
which is a value of message becomes 2 bits from the thirty-eighth bit.
Accordingly, in order to describe the protocol message for a communication system into a scenario, it is necessary to acquire a node in a protocol message as described above, and to carry out processing such as editing of a scenario, warning, or the like based on those data focusing on the fact that the position of a node to be processed is shifted in accordance with a value of a more previous node.
For example, as shown in FIG. 10, in a case of carrying out processing in which a tmsi (Temporary Mobile Subscriber) value of a receive protocol message (Receive Message) at a place surrounded with the elliptic frame is embedded into a transmit protocol message (Transmit Message), in a description of a scenario, as shown in FIG. 11, a receive protocol message is read with a specific place and a data size defined by a specification being designated, and is replaced with data of 32 bits which is a value read previously with a place to which a transmit protocol message corresponds being specified.
However, in this case, as described above, because the position of the node to be processed is shifted in accordance with a value of a more previous node, there is a problem in the point that a description of a scenario by an operator is difficult, and it is difficult to alert warning by determining a node.